Firsts are special, right? Well, the Indiana Fever have pretty much made it their mission this season to hand them out – just not the kind anyone wants. The Liberty just got handed their first L of the season thanks to the Fever. The Connecticut Sun had their moment a while back when they grabbed their first win over a Caitlin Clark-less Indiana on May 30. But in the rematch? Indiana made sure not to let that slide.
Now, the game was a chaos. A fiery, physical 88-71 dub for the Fever but not without drama, controversy, and a whole lot of side-eye at the officials. And at the heart of the storm? Yes, you guessed it -Caitlin Clark. Things got testy pretty early between Clark and Sun guard Jacy Sheldon. In the first half, they exchanged words after some aggressive defense. No big consequences there. But then came the third quarter and everything blew up. Clark was driving into the paint when Sheldon, guarding her tightly, poked her right in the eye.
Clark clearly wasn’t having it. Frustrated, she fired back with more words. A light shoving match followed and then, out of nowhere, Sun forward Marina Mabrey came charging in and shoved Clark to the floor. Everyone expected an ejection. But after a long review, Mabrey wasn’t tossed. Instead, she got a tech. So did Clark. So did Tina Charles.
The original eye-poke got bumped up to a flagrant 1, but that was it. The decision left fans and broadcasters stunned. And honestly, it left Fever head coach Stephanie White heated. So much so that when reporters brought up the officiating postgame, she didn’t wait for anyone to answer…she grabbed the mic herself and let it fly.
Stephanie White starts the press conference by saying she’ll take all questions related to officiating, then goes on an impassioned diatribe about the officiating: pic.twitter.com/qFQM7Cfkyg
— Chloe Peterson (@chloepeterson67) June 18, 2025
“There wasn’t an explanation for the tech that she got,” she said. “You know I think it was pretty obvious that stuff was brewing, right? When the officials don’t get control of the ball game… when they allow that stuff to happen and it’s been happening all season long, all season long – it’s not just this game. This is what happens, right? This is what happens.”
White wasn’t done. Her frustration poured out in real time. “You’ve got competitive women who are the best in the world at what they do, right? And when you allow [them] to play physical and you allow these things to happen, they’re going to compete and they’re going to have their teammates’ backs. It’s exactly what you expect out of fierce competition.”
She even admitted she saw this coming from the jump. “So I started talking to the officials in the first quarter, and we knew this was going to happen. You could tell it was going to happen. So they got to get control of it. They got to be better. They got to be better.” So, the Fever may have walked out with the win, but with calls like that the questions aren’t dying down anytime soon.
Developing Story….
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